The Life Expectancy of Left-Libertarian Parties.

Does Structural Transformation or

Economic Decline Explain Party Innovation? A Response to Wilhelm P. Brklin
Author(s): Herbert Kitschelt
Source: European Sociological Review, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Sep., 1988), pp. 155-160
Published by: Oxford University Press
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European Sociological Review, Vol. 4 No. 2, September 1988 155
( Oxford University Press 1988

Debate

The Life Expectancy of Left-libertarian Parties. Does

structural transformation or economic decline explain party
innovation? A Response to Wilhelm P. Buirklin*

HERBERT KITSCHELT

INTRODUCTION they are 'libertarian', because they emphasize

Wilhelm Burklin has contended in his article individual freedom, participation and social
decentralization and attack the traditional
'Governing left parties frustrating the radical
socialist instrumentalities of economic redistri-
non-established Left' that the decline of the
West German Greens is 'inevitable'. In hisbution,
view, a strong bureaucratic state with a
centralized
the Greens are a transitory phenomenon, caused planning machinery. To condense
my argument into five sentences, left-libertarian
by the frustrations of a young and well-educated
generation that is barred from moving parties
up the gain electoral weight where (i) economic
socio-economic ladder and hence supports affluence (ii) large welfare states (iii) corporatist
political ideas and programs opposed to the interest intermediation between capital and
established parties. As soon as the objective labor (iv) long-term socialist party incumbency
conditions, such as high unemployment, for this in government and (v) a highly mobilized con-
'sour grapes' logic disappear, things will return flict about nuclear power converge and interact.
to normal in the West German party system. Most of these conditions are present, and have
Support for the new party will wane as the promoted the electoral fortunes of left-liber-
established parties, primarily the Social Demo- tarian parties, in national parliamentary elec-
crats, will win back disaffected voters. tions during the 1980s, not just in West Germany
He contrasts his argument to my work on the but also in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, the
performance of West European 'libertarian Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzer-
parties' (Kitschelt, 1986, 1988). As a minor land.1 These parties do not exist or are weaker
in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Greece,
point, I should emphasize that Btirklin misrep-
resents my study in several respects. I am not Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Portugal,
arguing that left-libertarian parties, of which the Spain, the United States, and the United
West German Greens are but one example, are Kingdom. In a comparative macro-analysis, no
'characteristic of the coming post-industrial statistical relationship between economic misery
society' (Btirklin, 1987: 109). Nor do I base my (unemployment, inflation, lack of economic
case on the West German party alone. What my growth) and the rise of left-libertarian parties
work suggests is that a conjunction of socio- can be detected. In fact, countries with com-
economic developments and political insti- paratively strong left-libertarian parties have
tutions made it possible for political parties with performed economically slightly better than
countries without them.
left-libertarian demands to appear in some
European democracies. These parties are 'left' *Wilhelm P. Biirklin, 'Governing left parties frustrating the radical non-
established Left: the rise and inevitable decline of the Greens', European
because they call for economic redistribution; Sociological Review, Vol. 3 No. 2, September 1987, pp. 109-126.

0266-7215/88 $3.00 (?Oxford University Press 1988

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156 DEBATE

The major point of my response to Biirklin, generational interpretations of voters' value

however, is not to restate my own argument, but orientations are discussed, the article recognizes
to show that the reasoning and data employed in the limitations of a case study approach for
Buirklin's article do not bear out the author's
causal reasoning, but still, against all logic of
conclusion that the Greens (as a left-libertarian
comparative reasoning, claims that the case
party) are a purely 'conjunctural' phenomenon study provides a 'tentative test' (p. 115) of causal
rising in a period of economic stagnation and arguments. This is all the more surprising
doomed to vanish with renewed economic because longitudinal data analyses of the inter-
growth. I will make my case in four steps which
action between age, generation, and values do
closely follow Biirklin's article. I will first argue
exist which arrive at precisely the opposite con-
that the research design employed in theclusionsarticleto those the author draws from his case
is not able to support this conclusion. Second,
study. Abrahamson and Inglehart (1986) found
the empirical measures chosen in the study are
in a longitudinal analysis of value change in six
not valid operationalizations of the article'scountries that part of the relationship between
theoretical concepts. Third, the statistical age esti-
and value preferences must be attributed to
mates are interpreted in a distorted way. Fourth,
generational change rather than to life-cycles
the causal reasoning of the article is ambiguous.
and changes of economic conditions. Similarly,
Moreover, the article does not consider alterna-
Dalton (1984) shows in a cross-national study
tive explanations for the rise and decline of
that economics provides few clues to explain
political parties such as the Greens. environmentalism.
Being a case study with essentially one data
CASE STUDY AND COMPARATIVE point, Btirklin's article cannot determine
RESEARCH
whether the relationship between age, social
integration,
Btirklin's article employs individual levelvalues
dataand party preferences is due
on voters' socio-economic positions,to (i) voters' life-cycles, (ii) changes in a
attitudes
and political choices for a singlecountry's
country economic
at a climate, or (iii) generational
preference
single point in time to draw inferences aboutandthe
life-style changes which find
expression
rise and decline of a political party. A case in voting
studybehavior.
usually allows very limited inferences about the
dynamic causal interaction of variables such as
MEASURING SOCIAL INTEGRATION
voting behavior, economic performance, and
In a Durkheimian
individual socio-economic mobility (Eckstein, theoretical framework,
1975). Causal attributions requirearticle reasons that the lack of strong com
longitudinal
and/or cross-sectional comparison ties
ofand socio-economic
cases. My resources predis
own work, for instance, primarily highly educated
employs a individuals to protest aga
the existing
cross-sectional design, but also relies on some social order. Because individua
longitudinal evidence, which refutes the of
deprived prop-
the social recognition they exp
osition that economic decline contributes to the they reject the values and institutions underl
growth of left-libertarian parties. For instance, the existing order. The scholarly literatur
countries which experienced a greater slowdown social protest and innovation has sou
of economic growth, and higher unemployment rejected the Durkheimian proposition that
and inflation in the 1970s were less likely to have tive deprivation drives political protest (f
electorally significant left-libertarian parties in survey, see Jenkins, 1983). This, of course
the 1980s.
casts doubt on whether the rise of a 'pr
Lacking either a longitudinal or a cross-sec- party' can be explained in terms of rel
tional comparison, causal attributions in deprivation. Even within the constraints
Btirklin's case study remain arbitrary. Any case study design, however, Biirklin's ar
number of causal arguments is consistent with fails to provide an adequate empirical test o
the data presented in his article. In at least one relative deprivation or social (dis)integr
instance (pp. 114-15), where life-cycle and hypothesis. The article uses empirical indic

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 EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 157

gration
operationalizing social disintegration in a and deprivation. Stating the argument
highly
tenuous and questionable way. The article
positively instantly demonstrates that the choice
of these
employs data on the social position indicators reflects only conventional
of actors
social values,
(family status, source of income, residence, in the light of which certain types
etc.)
and attributes a sense of subjectiveof
frustrations
behavior and life- style appear as deviant and
deprived.
to actors based on this objective data. People really want to be married,
Inferring
raise children,
motivations and aspirations from social status is,own houses, go to church and live
however, a very risky business.2 in the countryside-a far-fetched proposition in
the light of In
Frustrations are disappointed expectations. all we know about changing life-
styles,
order to determine whether people arevalues,
frus-and personal conduct in most
trated, we must know (i) what their advanced industrial societies. What the article
expectations
takes
are and (ii) whether they are actually to be signs of disintegration and depriva-
disappoint-
ed by their living conditions. Objective
tion candata on
be interpreted, from a different value
people's socio-economic and cultural positionasin
perspective, conscious preferences for uncon-
society do not in themselves reveal this infor-
ventional life-styles.
mation. It may well be that individuals do not
expect certain gratifications and consciously
choose a life-style which diverges INTERPRETATION
from what OF STATISTICAL
FINDINGS
others, including a social scientist who writes
about voting preferences, may value as desirable
Btirklin's article itself provides evidence
individual's
gratifications. In fact, Btirklin's article employs score
a on the index of social inte-
benchmark of six objective indicators on the
gration tells us little about his or her values and
basis of which motivations are attributed to subjective sense of deprivation. Figure 1 (p. 122)
individuals towards a highly conventional
represents a path-analytic model explaining the
Green vote and shows that the beta-coefficient
'middle class' life-style. Only if this life-style
were accepted by all voters as the ideal of linking
the social integration and the rejection of
achievement values is a weak -0-17. Confir-
good life would Biirklin's measure of depri-
vation and social disintegration be valid. A mation
brief of a 'sour grapes' logic of Green voting
review of the indicators may be instructive. would require a much stronger link between
In the light of conventional values, it is socio-economic
cer- position and value orientation.
tainly true that having earned income implies Also Table 6 (p. 121) suggests that social
stronger and more active ties to the existing integration is a weak predictor of value orien-
fabric of social institutions than reliance on tations. Regardless of the degree of social inte-
parents' support, welfare, or unemployment
gration, Green voters prefer values of social
insurance. But it is well known that a significant
solidarity to achievement values by a wide mar-
number of left-libertarians consider low incomes gin, whereas conservative voters at all levels of
and financial dependence on benefactors social integration prefer achievement values.3
(parents, the state, peers) not as a deprivation, Both in Table 6 and in Figure 1, achievement
but as a desirable life-style which liberates them values emerge as a stronger predictor of the
from the boredom and drudgery of everyday Green vote than social integration.
jobs. It is not the failure to get a 'real' job, but Even if we disregard the questionable validity
the rejection of a standard career pattern which of the operational measures of social inte-
is expressed in sources of income. gration, the statistical model presented in the
The ambiguity of whether we are faced with article does not bear out the conclusion that
life-style choices or deprivations becomes even weak social ties explain the Green vote. The
more pronounced when we turn to the other zero order correlation between the index of
indicators. Being unmarried or divorced, having social integration and the Green vote explains
no children in the household, not owning a merely 10 per cent of the total variance (p. 122).
house, not going to church and living in big cities The multivariate path-analytic reconstruction of
are treated as evidence of weak social inte- the impact of age, educational 'class', social

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158 DEBATE

integration, and achievement orientation on the intellectual proletariat in Germany, one can
Green vote explains only 20 per cent of the total only conclude that this group of the fourth
variance in Green voting behavior. Of this 20 estate is in no country of Europe more
per cent, less than half can be attributed to social numerous and varied than it is with us. This
(dis)integration. The impact of none of the other goes to prove that the turnover of the nation's
variables in the model (age, education, edu- material capital is disproportionately small
cation, educational 'class' and achievement ori- compared with this wholesale and retail
entation) on voting behavior can be interpreted trade, this hawking and profiteering in spiri-
as evidence supporting the relative deprivation tual goods. Germany produces more mental
theory, because they are also consistent with product than she can use or pay for ....
other interpretations of the Green phenomenon We are confronted with a vicious circle.
(generational change, middle class radicalism, Intellectual work shoots up like weeds,
etc.). In other words, the article's sweeping because economic enterprise does not pro-
conclusion that the Green party will 'inevitably' vide it with sufficiently extensive opportuni-
disappear with economic growth and the ties for growth, and this growth in turn cannot
come to fruition, because every surplus of
increased availability of a middle class life-style
energy is dissipated in an endless foliage of
is based on less than 10 per cent of total variance
explained by the strategic independent books. There are various dangers in this for
variable.4 the social conditions of Germany. . . . The
Maybe we are compelled to resort to the lush growth of the intellectual proletariat is
sociology of knowledge in German politics to the reverse side of a spirited development in
understand why the article nevertheless insists the bourgeoisie.5
on social disintegration as the key factor
explaining the Green vote. It is interesting to AMBIGUITIES OF EXPLANATORY LOGIC
note that from the early nineteenth century
onwards causal links between education, a lack Although the main thrust of Burklin's a
of social ties, material and status deprivations, to back the relative deprivation and
and rebelliousness against the existing social (dis)integration model stated at the out
order have been drawn by conservatives in concluding section suddenly begins to co
Germany and elsewhere. Writing in the 1840s, highly instructive alternative interpret
Wilhelm Riehl, a spearhead of the Prussian the Green phenomenon which casts som
restoration after the Napoleonic wars, expressed on the causal linkages the paper tried t
his concern about the unsettling effects of the lish throughout. To appreciate the new t
German 'intellectual proletariat' in the following cal model, let us first schematically repres
words: article's predominant causal scheme:
In Germany, the intellectual proletariat
deteriorating economic conditions
is the real, fighting church of the fourth
estate. It represents the great vanguard of I
that social stratum which has broken with the
relative deprivation of the educated young
traditional social structure, openly and self-
consciously ...
I think of this group of the fourth estate in voting preference for the Greens
the broadest terms. It consists of a proletariat
of civil servants, a proletariat of school-Yet in the conclusion (pp. 123-124) the decision
masters, perennial students of theology,to vote Green is represented by a new theoreti-
starving academic instructors, literati, jour- cal structure which relies on variables nowhere
nalists, artists of all kinds ranging downwardsincluded in the original theoretical model and
from the travelling virtuosi to the itinerant empirical analysis. Now value change is taken as
comedians, organ-grinders and vaudeville a premise, and the fate of the Greens primarily
singers. If one examines the legions of this hinges upon the party's strategic interaction with

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 EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW 159

the explanandum of the article. Is it the demand

competing parties rather than on psychological
and economic forces. Will the German Social for left-libertarian politics in general or the
Democratic Party, in opposition since 1982,supply
be of a specific vehicle satisfying this
able to attract the Green vote by adoptingdemand,
or the Greens? Throughout the article,
appearing to adopt New Left political stances?
the demand for left-libertarian parties (i.e., rela-
The explanatory model has changed to a schemetive deprivation of the educated young in a time
running somewhat like this: of economic crisis) was the strategic variable
driving voting behavior. Now it appears that the
socio-cultural value and life-style preferences
supply of party alternatives, holding value
orientations or 'demand' constant, is really what
the article sets out to explain.
the competitive positions of parties in
This ambiguity concerning the explanandum
the German party system
in studies of parties and party systems is not
I new, but mars the entire literature since Lipset
voting preferences for the Greens and Rokkan's (1967) seminal contribution,
arguing that most European party systems have
In the new model, the longevity of left-liber- remained stable since the 1920s. Most scholars
tarian political preferences appears in a new have interpreted stability and change of party
light. Burklin argues that the Greens will dis- systems in terms of the volatility of electoral
appear if the SPD begins to appeal to left-liber- returns for individual parties (cf. Rose and
tarian values and wins back Green voters. Since Unwin, 1970; Shamir, 1984). I believe, however,
parties usually cannot change their programs that Rokkan and Lipset were examining the
and strategies quickly, some durability, beyondpatterns of ideological and programmatic
a passing economic crisis, must be attributed to
alternatives in party systems, i.e., the insti-
left-libertarian values to make it worth while for tutionalization of demand patterns in party
a political party to cater to them. Moreover, thesystems, regardless whether over time the same
model relies on the strategic behavior of parties,
or different parties represent these alternatives.
not the sociological characteristics of voters, to
From this second perspective, the survival of
explain party performance. Within a few pages, left-libertarian politics is not a matter of whether
the article shifts from an old-fashioned this or that ecology party will stay in existence.
'Michigan style' sociological analysis of Whatvoter
counts is only whether any party, indepen-
behavior to more modern rational-choice orien- dent of its label, will represent left-libertarian
ted analyses that examine parties as strategicpolitics and gain significant support in the
decision-makers which try to optimize the link electoral competition. Biirklin's conclusion,
between the pursuit of policy objectives and however, leaves open whether he wants to
voter support. In fact, the sociological variables explain the support for a specific party or the
analyzed throughout the article could provide a more general institutionalization of a new
much less powerful explanation of Green political alternative, left-libertarian demands
electoral performance than strategic variables. and constituencies, in contemporary party
For instance, in the 1987 German state elec- systems.
tions, the Greens did very well where they In summary, while Burklin's article has the
promised to their voters a moderate strategy ofmerit of providing interesting data and a bold
alliance building with the Social Democrats argument in a fairly clear and consistent way, its
(especially in Bavaria, Bremen and Hesse),concrete theoretical, methodological, and
whereas they performed badly where they com-empirical contributions help us little in reassess-
mitted themselves to a radical course of opposi-ing theories about the change of party systems in
tion in principle (Hamburg, Schleswig- advanced democracies or in predicting the
Holstein). future of the Greens. Burklin tries to answer an
Biirklin's new model raises a final important excessively complex question in one stroke,
question. It becomes unclear what constitutes without considering a host of variables affecting

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160 DEBATE

change in party systems. To put the magnitude cational 'class'. It is highly unlikely that there are no
of his task into perspective, imagine a social significant linkages between these variables. (iii) The
article does not explain how education and educational
scientist writing a hundred years ago attempting
'class' are distinguished, but I suspect a strong correlation
to predict the future of socialist parties in between both measures. This multicollinearity among
Europe at a time when these parties were as old independent variables entered in a regression on voting
as the oldest left-libertarian parties are today. behavior would make statistical parameter estimates
Although an intelligent observer in the 1880s highly volatile.
5. Wilhelm Riehl, Die burgerliche Gesellschaft (Stuttgart: J.
might have identified crucial variables influ-
G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung, 1930), pp. 312-13. The
encing the fate of socialist parties, s/he would English translation of Riehl's text is quoted from Bendix
have hardly been able to predict the parties' (1978: 270).
future, because politicians make strategic
choices. Liberal and catholic parties were
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3. Here as well as in Table 3 the article makes the link Annual Meeting of the APSA, Washington, D.C.,
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4. There are also several technical problems with Burklin's
path analysis which, for reasons of space, I will not
explore further. (i) Since the dependent variable AUTHOR'S
is a ADDRESS
Herbert Kitschelt, Department of Political Science, D
dummy, log-linear regression techniques should be used.
(ii) The model shows no endogenous paths or exogenousUniversity, Durham, North Carolina, 27706, USA.
correlations between age, education, and new edu-
Manuscript received: February, 1988.

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